From washing dishes in a restaurant to sleeping with vagrants under bridges and holding up placards for legendary mime artist Marcel Marceau, the revered philosopher Fr Peter Serracino Inglott led a very colourful life as he attempted to make ends meet while studying to become a priest. The adventures of the priest as a young man continue in this long read from his biography 'PSI Kingmaker' by Daniel Massa.

Read excerpts one and two.

The Christ-Clown link between saintliness and foolishness, established by the great impressionist painter Georges Rouault, had been cemented as a hallmark of Peter’s ideals, so when news broke of the artist’s death he was determined to attend the funeral.

On a dreary grey day in February 1958, vans of Radiodiffusion and television started gathering early outside the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés for the state funeral as barriers were erected and the road closed to traffic. Unruffled, Peter tied his brown laces on his black shoes, and walked into the church as if he were an official helper.

He sat about 20 seats from the front, gazing at the mosaic floors and opulent paintings on the ceiling. Rouault’s coffin, wrapped in black, was placed on a platform surrounded by lighted candles and Peter thought he recognised the invited guests trickling in – none other than great artists such as Picasso and Dalí.

At 11am, Requiem Mass started for the revered 88-year-old Christian artist, reviving Peter’s sadness at not having been able to attend his own father’s funeral three months previously.

After receiving the Eucharist, Peter, still lost in his thoughts, drifted into a different aisle and found himself sitting right next to the legendary Marcel Marceau, history’s greatest mime actor.

Peter recounts: “As we rose to leave, Marceau grabbed my hand and said, ‘Georges, il etait un grand homme’. I had been to see Marceau – dubbed The Man of Silence — perform and he never uttered a word. I was surprised to hear him speak… So I told him: Yes, undoubtedly, a great painter.”  

“He looked at me trying to guess my nationality. I told him I had admired Rouault since my teens, and then continued to gaze at Marceau as if to confirm that it really was him.“

Then he spoke again: ‘Yes. You guess right. I am Marcel Marceau. When I started my career, few people attended my show. Then, they slowly started coming, except for the three front rows that would always be vacant bar one person — Georges Rouault regularly booked three whole rows.”

When Mass ended, Rouault’s coffin was brought out on the parvis to enable all those who gathered to pay their last respects to see.

Marceau and Peter stood side by side, listening to the eulogies on George Rouault.

An offer from Marceau

Not one to miss out on the opportunity to speak with The Silent Man, Peter confided that he wished he could see Marceau’s shows more often but could not afford the entrance fees as a student in his final year at Oxford University.

Marceau made him an offer: “Earn a few francs by carrying placards on stage for me.”Peter pounced on this idea and asked if the offer would still be open when he returned to Paris in seven months’ time. Marceau nodded, smiled broadly and vigorously shook Peter’s hand.

Peter smiles as he recalls his time on stage with Marceau in Rue Saint-Denis carrying a funny poster around to place the mime in perspective. Marceau had created this stage persona — Bip the Clown — weaving stories of Bip in love; Bip the lion tamer; Bip commits suicide, Bip facing a tough steak.

Peter liked this last one best because after the show the two would always share a huge steak together.

Notorious as a place of prostitution and strip clubs, Rue Saint-Denis also contained fashion shops, bars and bistros, where Peter hung around as a sandwich-man advertising Marceau’s shows.

Maltese notaries heading to offices in the area, were only faintly surprised to learn Peter had taken a part-time job in that naughty district. Archbishop Gonzi would probably have started a novena to Saint Denis himself to intercede with Peter’s two guardian angels to protect him from Parisian temptations down his own street!

Maltese notaries heading to offices in the area, were only faintly surprised to learn Peter had taken a part-time job in that naughty district

Around this time, Peter was always cash-strapped. His diet consisted of stale baguettes, vegetables and fresh Camembert cheese. It was hard. Sometimes, precious cash would fall from heaven, such as when his friend Mario Felice would send him a sum of money collected from his lawyer friends, since Archbishop Gonzi was not financially supporting his errant seminarian.

Peter, however, bore no grudge. He was just determined to succeed even if that meant taking on odd jobs, such as washing dishes in a restaurant in Rue des Fosses — it earned him cash, kept his hands clean, and provided warm meals.

Once the owner learnt he could trust him, he would let Peter sleep on a few cushions in the corner of the restaurant. Then early the next day, he would rush off for Mass at the Séminaire, invariably always arriving five minutes late.

With the exception of Thierry Becker, who had been arrested with him during protests to free Algeria, other seminarians never guessed that Peter was roughing it up, sleeping on stained parquet flooring, or out with beggars under bridges. Peter relished mixing with down-and-outs.

Though most were protective of their turf, others were not. One particular vagrant sheltering near Radio France spoke learnedly about many philosophers and their concepts. Everybody knew him as Schophenauer and Peter often went out of his way to share a snack with him.

Peter had heard him say he would love to read Joseph Conrad’s Almayer’s Folly because it spoke most directly about the hypocrisy of white settlers. So one day as he was passing Saint-Ouen market he snapped a dog-eared copy and offered it to Schopenhauer.

Schopenhauer looked at it and said: “No, No, you keep it: this is première édition.”

Peter could hardly believe it was the first edition from 1895. It was difficult to convince him to keep it, but finally Schophenauer ruffled Peter’s red hair in appreciation and a show of lasting friendship.

In turn, Schopenhauer shared his excellent snail recipe. Somewhere among Peter’s papers in Rue d’Assas there existed a copy of this recipe in longhand signed “to Saraceno”  by none other than Schopenhauer himself! Peter went about his life and whenever he worked a shift at the restaurant handling the “empties”, Peter would discard some empty wine bottles but keep others he fancied, reckoning he could flog these if the opportunity ever arose.

That moment came when his sister Josephine, who was training to be a nurse at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, visited him in Paris for Easter.

Sharing an interest in avant-garde churches, Peter and Josephine travelled to Notre Dame du Haut in Beauchamp –  the last hill of the Vosges – designed by Corbusier.

On their return from the countryside, seeing the huge hoard of empty wine bottles Peter had accumulated in his attic Josephine suggested they sell them. They lugged them north to the flea market of Saint-Ouen and Josephine took charge of sales, convincing a grumpy stall-keeper to lease them a corner to exhibit their wares: polished wine and spirit bottles and a damaged decanter.

She adorned half a dozen bottles with black pebbles and blue ribbons which fluttered with every breeze, and at the back a yellow flower and a holy picture of Therese of Lisieux. Then they waited for the trap to spring.           

One gentleman kept cradling an empty Johnnie Walker bottle in his arms, then put six wine bottles in a green string bag. The whisky bottle he put in his briefcase. “That’s a present for my dear wife,” he told Josephine as he walked off leaving them looking on incredulously at the fifty francs he had left in their hands.

This is the third in a series of weekly long reads from the biography of Fr Peter Serracino Inglott — PSI Kingmaker — to mark the 10th year from his death. The book will be available from the BDL book stand during the Malta Book Festival being held this week at the Malta Fairs & Conventions Centre (MFCC) in Ta’ Qali between November 23 and November 27. https://bit.ly/PeterSerracinoInglottKingmaker